Update: Shark hoax was 'Web-only'

A fake sign reporting a shark incident and a subsequent beach closure in San Clemente was just a joke, the sign's author said Monday.

But he said that he never actually posted any sign on the beach – just on the Internet.

"Sorry if my hoax caused some concern with you and your readers," Jeff Marder wrote on Facebook. "It was an inside joke that went viral, and fast."

Marder, a San Clemente surfer, said the sign photo that he posted online was a doctored picture of a sign that had been posted June 29 at Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County after an incident there. Marder said he found it on a friend's Facebook page. "All I did was cut and paste my own info on it. There was NO sign on the beach," Marder wrote.

It caused enough of a stir that the city of San Clemente issued a news release Monday stating that a fake public notice had been posted on the beach and the bogus sign had been removed promptly. Lifeguards said they got lots of telephone inquiries because of the Internet posting.

The sign that Marder said he posted only on Facebook said:

"A large shark, possibly a great white shark, bumped several paddle boarders & surfers off their surfboards near the San Clemente Pier. Unfortunately due to this activity we are forced to close water recreation from San Clemente Pier to Califia Beach (Calafia was misspelled). If you choose to enter the water you are doing so at your own risk."

The original photo that Marder took it from said the bumping took place "off of Tajiguas Beach about 1 mile away."

"We are going to try to squash this now," Ferguson said Monday morning as she prepared the news release. The city's press release said the sign was posted on the state beach. State lifeguards said they heard that signs had been posted on nearby city beach.

HERON RESCUE

If the name Jeff Marder looks familiar, he was in the news in March, 2012, when he rescued a black-crowned night heron while surfing at the San Clemente Pier, discovering the bird dangling from beneath the pier deck, entangled in fishing line. Marder managed to free the bird, then ferried it to shore on the nose of his surfboard, the entire episode captured on his Go-Pro camera.

Monday, he described the hoax sign as "a friendly joke that went viral."

A REAL CLOSURE

Meanwhile, the city announced that an actual beach closure – at San Clemente's Mariposa Beach – ended Saturday after a four-day bathing ban. It was caused by a sewage spill from an apartment complex that got into the public storm-drain system, the city said.